Pictured here is a rural area near Viñales, Cuba, where many residents said they spotted the meteorite on Friday, Feb. 1, 2019.

(Ron Brackett/weather.com)

At a Glance

A meteorite landed in western Cuba on Friday afternoon.

Residents in the town of Viñales said they spotted the object streaking across the sky.

No injuries were reported, though there are unconfirmed reports of damage.

The meteor was seen on satellite and radar before hitting Cuba.

Residents of a town in western Cuba said the area was rocked by what is believed to be a meteorite strike, and windows might have been blown out in some homes nearby. The meteor was seen on satellite and radar just before hitting Cuba.

"We’re receiving reports that a meteor was seen in the sky across the Florida Keys," the Key West office of the National Weather Service said in a tweet on Friday afternoon. "It appears that a meteorite impact occurred in western Cuba, near the town of Viñales, Pinar del Río, earlier this afternoon."

"We were coming from the center ... and we saw a ball of fire cross the sky," Spanish tourist Jesus Nicolas told the Associated Press in Havana. "Sure it was a meteorite and a very big one."

A team of scientists would travel to Pinar del Rio province to collect fragments of the meteorite to study them, Efren Jaimez Salgado, head of the Environmental Geology, Geophysics and Risks department of Cuba's Institute of Geophysics and Astronomy, told state newspaper Granma, as reported by the AP.

A town of about 27,000, Viñales is located in western Cuba, some 100 miles southwest of Havana.

The difference between a meteor and a meteorite is that a meteorite reaches the Earth's surface intact while a meteor may or may not vaporize. Meteors are often called shooting stars.

Meteor Seen on Satellite and Radar

The meteorite was seen just moments before hitting the ground as a meteor on various forms of satellite and radar.

As the meteor crashed through our atmosphere, it was picked up on GOES-EAST's Geostationary Lightning Mapper as a quick flash over western Cuba. You can also see thunderstorms ongoing in the Gulf of Mexico at the time.

The meteor appears as a small blue gas pocket on satellite on one of GOES-EAST's other channels, too. What you're seeing here is the space rock giving off sulphur dioxide as it hits the atmosphere.

The meteor was also seen on the National Weather Service radar out of Key West, Florida as a small blip.

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